Jennifer Kabat’s Nascent Blog

The Beat Goes On

Now for a word from our sponsors, or a small word of self-promotion. (Also cultural promotion, for that matter). “The Record” has opened at the Nasher Museum at Duke Univeristy. While few of you may get there, all of you should check it out. Dedicated to the crossover between music and art, the catalogue includes my essay from Frieze on the cover Robert Rauschenberg did for the Talking Heads’ Speaking in Tongues. 

The book also includes contributions by another Catskills writer Luc Sante and cultural impresario (and once years ago my landlord) Carlo McCormick. The exhibit itself features Jasper Johns and Christian Marclay as well as Jeroen Diepenmaat’s “Pour Des Dents d’un Blanc Eclatant et Saines,” shown here, and Dario Robleto’s moving, mournful piece below, “Sometimes Billie Is All That Holds Me Together.”

Robleto took Billie Holiday records, pressed the vinyl into buttons and painted them, then sewed them onto shirts missing buttons found at thrift stores and other places. Once the shirt had all its buttons, he gave it back to the thrift shops or returned it to where he’d found it originally. “Sometimes Billie…” is also the back cover to Yo La Tengo recent (and excellent) album “Popular Songs.” Indeed, what goes around, comes around and “The Record” is up until February 6, 2011.

S’MORE SEX

 (photo by Colin Purrington)

Recently we had relatives visiting from the UK and introduced them to the joys of S’mores. (For those who don’t know, this is graham crackers, chocolate and melted marshmallow). I explained the history of said that one of the key ingredients the graham cracker was designed to curb sexual appetites.

            Now I’ve had a long held interest in the social history of sex, and the graham cracker (GC) definitely comes under that category. In flavor it’s akin to the British digestive biscuit, and like some of our best cultural and culinary creations they were both designed for to fix big problems. Digestives as the name implies being a cure for upset stomachs. People thought they had antacid properties and now McVities sells theirs with a disclaimer. (Imagine the poor soul who eats a whole package hoping, waiting, to feel better…) Meanwhile the GC itself was meant to stop people masturbating. Indeed – and not in that way that ice cream companies sometimes advertise decadent flavors to ladies as a replacement for a lover.

            In 1829 Dr Sylvester Graham was a Presbyterian minister, advocating a bland diet. Its adherents could eat whole wheat and no meat, lots of fruits and vgetables, no spices and only sparing amounts of butter. (Makes you wonder what people will say about Atkins in 100 years time). From the 1830s to 1941 the poor students at Oberlin College were forced to follow the diet. (You can only imagine it lead to more masturbation the food is so dull).

            Graham’s enduring cultural legacy is the eponymous cracker, made now from white flour (bad in his book) and corn flakes.  Dr John Kellogg was Grahamite and together with his brother made corn flakes as part of the Graham Diet.

Likewise, marshmallows also had a “healthy” origin. Made first from the mallow plant (it grows here in the sticks as a roadside wildflower) it was a cure for the sore throat, though early on, the Egyptians were serving it up as candy too using mallow root sap. Making the candy was labor intensive so in the 19^th century French candy makers replaced that sap with gelatin, egg whites and corn starch.

Ironically the only ingredient in a S’more that has smidgen of healthful properties is chocolate. Or, at least, dark chocolate which researchers now claim is good for you. Luckily it’s my favorite ingredient. The best S’more drops the Hershey’s for something Fair Trade at 72% (cocoa, that is).

Money Woes and Whisky Hopes

This morning NPR did a story on scotch saving not just Scotland but all of Britain. (It is Scotland’s biggest export – bigger than North Sea oil – which NPR didn’t say).  Also whisky’s been saving Scotland since long before the current fiscal crisis. The UK pinned its hopes on whisky all the way back in 1784 after the war with the States (known in these here parts as the Revolutionary War) depleted Britain’s coffers. Then the 21 year-old prime minister William Pitt signed a tax law to raise revenue from malt whisky and along the way set the course for the whisky we know today – both single malts and even more so the big work horse (and the single malt’s overlooked and unloved brother) blended whisky. Which is much better than many whisky snobs give it credit. 

While NPR dissed blends, they did focus on the groovy indie Glengoyne. (Above on one of Scotland’s sunny days) But, nearby and not open for tours (and far less touristic—there’s no white-washed distillery here) is Loch Lomond whose High Commissioner is a 3 year-old blend sold as many UK supermarkets’ own-brand and by all accounts excellent.…

From the Horse’s Mouth

Here in the sticks there is little graffiti. When Obama was running, we had a spate of Hopes and stenciled Barack heads ala Shep Fairey. (That’s when I knew Barack would win…). But, through it all one piece has endured up here. Not TJ + Rhonda. Or Tim hearts Tammy, but “Mr Ed” – big, white and spray-painted with dripping Krylon. You can find this wonky masterpiece on a boulder on the way into Bovina Center. It’s been there ever since I can remember – which for the record is 2004. (I’m no rural old timer, I admit it.)

Turns out that this Mr. Ed isn’t some kind of rural slander but homage. The talking horse hails from here. Yes 1960s famous TV talking horse is a Catskills’ creation. He comes from Walter R Brooks’s story “Ed Takes the Pledge.”  Long before another New Yorker contributor was living in Maine and writing about anthropomorphic animals was Brooks. He left his life as a former ad man and big-city NYC resident and moved to Roxbury NY. So, while Bovina is a full 18 miles over New Kingston Mountain Road (up here this counts as close) Brooks’ creation Mr. Ed endures as does his original home on Main Street in Roxbury. 

The Inside of an Italian Hospital

That’s how Roger Sterling describes the very deluxe new Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce offices in the Time Life Building. And pretty much like the place I grew up, Hollin Hills. Also coincidentally childhood home to Mad Men’s production designer Dan Bishop. A suburb of 450 mid cent modern glass houses, all by one architect (Charles Goodman) with three of modernism’s best landscape architects including Dan Kiley.

You can find this nirvana in the rather conservative confines of Northern Virginia. The nabe is home to liberal lefties and old school CIA agents (according to Michael Sorkin architect also from there). It’s now home to one Republican senator (just about the only Republican in the ‘hood) and you can read more about it all here in a feature I wrote for Wallpaper. On a personal note, my big sister said Dan Bishop once had a crush on her. She also said some other stuff, but that might be libelous.